Nancy Pelosi: Tax Cuts are Spending

PELOSI: (whispering) Tax cuts are spending. “Tax expenditures,” they are called. Subsidies for Big Oil, subsidies to send jobs overseas, breaks to send jobs overseas, breaks for corporate jets, they are called tax expenditures. Spending money on tax breaks. And that’s the spending that we must curtail as well.
RUSH: This is another great illustration of how these people think. What she’s saying is that a tax cut equals government spending. Meaning anybody who benefits from a tax cut, tax break, tax loophole, is benefiting from government spending. That is why, by the way, anytime a tax cut is proposed, they start saying, “Well, how are we going to pay for it?”
Have you ever been struck by, “How are we gonna pay for it?”
What do you mean, “pay” for it?
“Well, that’s money we’re losing. We’re spending money on that tax cut. How we gonna recoup it? Where are we gonna get that money?” ‘Cause the government can never do with less. Now, the only way that a tax cut is federal spending is if all money is Washington’s. If they think that all money originates in and is controlled by the government, then everything you have is a result of their spending it and allowing you to have it. They have every dollar. They own it. They are in control of every dollar. And what you earn, you go to your boss, he hires you, you negotiate what your salary is gonna be, the government is actually paying you that, because they’re not taxing it. Anything they don’t tax is spending. And that’s how they think. She is being dead serious. We can argue whether she’s an idiot or not, but this is what she really thinks. And she’s not the only one. This is what Democrats think. A tax break, a tax loophole, the mortgage interest deduction, that’s government spending. Any dollar that they don’t get, any dollar that they don’t have, they view it as they are spending it, on you, for your benefit. So when they raise taxes, they’re simply taking some of their money back. They’re not taking anything of yours.
The rich haven’t been paying their fair share. We need to go back and get some of that money from the rich. This is how they can make the claim that you poor people, the rich came along and took your money when you weren’t looking. The rich got rich on the backs of the poor. This is how they mean it. She really does believe this. And she also believes this. This was December 6th in 2012.
PELOSI: People had paid in to an unemployment insurance program and then they had those benefits, which probably are one of the most important stimuli for the economy. The economists tell us that, dollar for dollar, there’s more demand injected into the economy by unemployment insurance than most anything.
RUSH: Now, we can debate whether she’s an idiot, but she really believes this. She’s not just saying it. She really thinks that the government paying you unemployment benefits is the equivalent of a giant economic stimulus. It’s money in the economy that wouldn’t be there otherwise. Their economists tell them that unemployment benefits are maybe one of the best ways to stimulate economic growth that there’s ever been. She went on to say that unemployment compensation is one of the greatest job creators that the government has at its disposal.
Now, we can debate whether she’s an idiot, but she really believes this. She does believe it. Well, we can discuss later whether she’s an idiot. Maybe it doesn’t require debate. You may be right. We could discuss later whether she’s an idiot, but why should anybody work? Let’s just pay everybody unemployment benefits and get out of the way for all the economic activity that’s gonna happen.